The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1887-09-01
ARP ON FARMING.
How slifty Mon Manage to Get Along.

The inter State convention was sue.
cess. Our leading farmers will keep
pegging away until they find out what is
the matter with farming, and then may
be we will change our methods and get
along better. lam glad the convention
found out what was not the matter.
That is good way to narrow down the
investigation. It is now settled that it is
not the tariff that depresses farming
but Kentucky mules and western meat
and northern spectators have good
dealto do with it.
But the greatest embarrassment over
our up country farming is disinclina-
tioa to work. Our farmers will plow
and hoe pretty we'll when they get at it,
but Joe Bradley told me that if man
didn't scratch his mead in the field by
sunrise he wouldn't succeed at farming.
I6ave watched Joe ten years and he is a
success. He never-went to town except
on business, and he attended to his busi-
ness and returned home . with alacrity
and went to work. Some of his nabors
would lose nearly the whole day when
they went to town. Joe saves the scrap
pings of his barn yard and the fence
corners and has heaps of compost. He
raises his own meat and has some to sell.
He buys calves in the neighborhood and
pastures them until they grow big and
fat. He oils his harness and keeps his
wagon CREASED, and when rainy day
comes, he goes to his workshop and fixes
up the plows and hoes and axes. Joe
loves to work and is.always at it, and 80
of course he is accumulating. But q
good many of our farmers have almost
quit attending to little things. It is 30
handy to buy meat that be won't raise
hogs. It is SO handy to buy fertilizers
that he never scrapes the barnyard but
lets it all wash away. He will give
fifteen cents for an ak handle rather than
make one. If man comes along the
road be will talk to him half an hour.
He will hunt squirrels and go fishing, or
attend Justices court when his crop is in
the grass, and SO of course he is always
behind. He has to rent poor land
because he amt s6tten' to tend any other
Kind. So after MI it is more in the far
.mer than the farm. I don't know that
there is such great difference between
farming and other occupations. The
farmers say they don't have fair show
ing with merchants and manufacturers
and lawyers and doctors, but ! don't
know any class who are so independent
IS farmers of the Joe Bradley type. He
has everything to make his family COM
Portable, and he made it on the farm and
still makes it. Ills family help: him to
make it. They all work and when he
hires darkey the darkey works. He
makes him work. He is ashamed not to
work, for everybody and everything on
the place is alive and kicking. Joe will
draw bucket of water in half the time
be used to. believe that as many far
mers succeed as merchants or manufac.
turers-in proportion to their numbers.
.Thes statistics prove that fifty mer-
chants out of a hundred fail. Thirty
more just squeeze along and make it a
support. Ten more get ahead and accu-
mulate slowly and the other ten get rich.
It.is about the same way with manu-
facturers. AS for lawyers and doctors no
body knows until they are dead whether
they are ahead or behind. But the average
farmer don't break. He can't break.
He can't even suspend. If themerchant
who runs him can't-get his advances he
must run him sgain, and be hopeful of a
better crop the next year. The farmer is
too apt to compare his situation with the
merchants apparent ease and comfort,
but he doesn't know that the merchant
has bank notes falling due every sixty
days, and has to lapgover and ahindig
around to keep up. He doesn't know
the strain there is to keep his family
along with the upper crust. 1t won't do
to pick out the exceptional cases like the
Mobiles or Keely or Kiser or John Ryan,
fol-. those men would have made money
raising COW peas in Sahara, or driving
terrapins to the coast at half o mile a
day. Why shouldn't the farmers be
doing as well as they used to do ten
years ago, Cotton is a: little lower, but
It costs less tc make. it. Corn is never
less than fifty cents bushel, and that is
fifty per cent. higher than it is up North.
Last year the Augusta Chronicle sent out
circulars asking the most reliable far
mers what cotton cost to grow it.
The replies we're published and were
very interesting and very satisfactory,
They were carefully made up from their
actual experience, and the result was an
average cost of six and half cents a
pound. So that gives profit of ten
dollars bale with hired labor, but when
a man with half dozen children to help
him, does his own work and raises bs
own supplies, his cotton money ia nearly
all clear profit and can be added to bis
capital stock.
There are three classes of farmers
Those who own the land and cultivate ii
with home or hired labor; those who
are landlords only and rent their land to
tenants, and those who are tenants only
Mr.. Munford and G. NJ. Jones and
Captain Lyon and Mr.. Davis and Joe
Bradley and Major Wooley and Mr.
N5:I fo;. On ,,,,1a, ,,f tho ref 1ass